Volunteers Are Helping Clean Up A Historic Allentown Cemetery * Former Convicts Offer Their Services To Union And West End Cemetery.

October 25, 1999|by ROSA SALTER, The Morning Call

It took seven men to right the gravestone of Eleanor Dubs.

They kneeled or squatted around it, some with their shoulders against it to push, others holding it in their hands to lift.

As the 3-by-5-foot marble stone of the woman, who died in 1891, was steadied onto two metal pins, Barbara Miller of Allentown breathed a sigh of relief.

"It weighs a ton, and that's a literal ton," she said. "Well, maybe half a ton. At least 1,000 pounds."

Standing in the middle of 19.6 acres of Allentown's historic-but-neglected Union and West End Cemetery, Miller was surrounded by hundreds of other stones needing the same kind of effort.

Because of the help she's gotten from an unlikely source, the president of the cemetery's nonprofit association is a lot more confident than she used to be that the work will get done.

Six of the men working on the graves are former inmates of state prisons. And, no, they're not on work release or being ordered to do the job by a judge.

The men were volunteers from the Community Correctional Center, 608-610 Hamilton Mall, a halfway house program designed to ease criminals back into society as they are paroled.

"We decided that one thing these guys need to do is they need to give back to society for free," said Edward Krug, center director.

"They've probably taken from society, but we want them to understand the feeling when they give back."

Krug described his charges as men "who did well in prison," and by Miller's reckoning, the former inmates have proved their dedication.

They have been working to restore the graveyard three Sunday mornings a month since May.

"Other organizations have adopted a section ... and never came out," she said. "These guys have been coming faithfully."

When it's rained, the men have worked, Miller said. Even a gray, cold and windy October morning such as Sunday didn't deter them.

Working at a rate of about 15 tombstones a week, the men already have righted about 400 tombstones in the section of the cemetery nearest 10th and Chew streets. The cemetery stretches west to N. 12th Street and north to Liberty Street.

Uprighting the markers is a crucial first step in cleaning up the cemetery because it's difficult to mow and trim around the downed stones, Miller said. However, the workers also do those jobs and clear away downed tree limbs, she said.

Still, the task that remains is formidable. At least two-thirds of the remaining graves, some of Civil War soldiers and others of Allentown's 19th-century leading citizens, remain askew.

Common is the fate of the graves of the family of Sarah Handwerk, who was born in 1844 and died in 1875. While her simple white stone remains upright, all nine others have fallen and are overgrown. One was covered by dog excrement Sunday.

Many of the graves carry names that remain common in the Lehigh Valley today -- Diehl, Wint, Schantz, Kline, Fegley, Gardner, Schlabach.

Crew member Mark McBride, 39, of Allentown, who was mowing an area where a burial is scheduled for today, said he sometimes thinks the cleanup is a losing battle. The cemetery remains a target of continuing vandalism.

In one area where he'd worked a few weeks ago, "Every one of those tombstones were leveled over again," he said. "It's kind of sad."

But the work also has its rewards. "I enjoy it because I'm really into history," McBride said.

After a cemetery official showed the gravestone of a baby who died in the 1800s to McBride, "I've been looking for interesting ones," he said. "Some are really old."

One interesting stone was righted Sunday, next to that of Eleanor Dubs. It was erected to mark the grave of the Rev. Joseph S. Dubs, who was born in 1796 and died in 1877.

A section of the "Portrait and Biographical Record of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon Counties, Pennsylvania," published in 1894, lists Dubs as pastor of Zion Reformed Church in Allentown for 30 years beginning in 1831.

The church on Hamilton Mall is now known as Zion's United Church of Christ and is sometimes called "the Liberty Bell Church" because of the shrine commemorating the bell's stay there during the Revolutionary War.

An 1884 volume, "The History of the Counties of Lehigh and Carbon," says Dubs was widely known as "Father Dubs" because "there were multitudes who regarded him with almost filial affection."

"His devotion to the minutest details of pastoral duty and his abundant good will towards all classes of the community gained for him an unusual degree of genuine popularity," the history notes.

The history lists Eleanor as his second wife and says that name later acquired a second "b." One of Dubs' sons succeeded him as pastor at Zion church.

Because the stone had been face down for so long, Miller had no idea to whom it belonged before it was righted.

Nor did she immediately recognize the name's connections.

Miller said when they are righted, the stones are being epoxied, anchored in crushed stone and caulked to better secure them.

She said the association was able to begin restoring the cemetery because of a $5,000 grant to buy tools and supplies from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. The grant was secured with the help of state Sen. Charles Dent, she said.

The association also is seeking $1 million in contributions for an endowment to provide perpetual care for the grounds, according to Miller.

It's ironic, she noted, that the fact that the Dubses' stones had been knocked over made identification easier.

The soft ground had shielded their engraving from the elements, she said.

"Many of these stones that stood upright," she said, "you can't even read them."